Perhaps the biggest story to come out of Gippsland in the 1840s was the search for a lost white women said to have been held captive by some Gunaikurnai people. Local legend has it that in the 1840s, a young woman, the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the nearby Ninety Mile Beach was taken and held captive by the local tribe of Bratwoloong, who inhabited this part of Gippsland. The story of the captive white woman developed a life of its own, spawning numerous myths, with various versions even claiming a sighting of a white woman being hurried away.
